


Her Lover

by LittleObsessions



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Cohen Inspired, Cohen's Suzanne, Explicit Language, F/M, Internal Monologue, POV Third Person, The Merry Month of Cohen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 00:49:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleObsessions/pseuds/LittleObsessions
Summary: "There is so much about her you don’t know, and too much you’ve fabricated to fill the gaps in your own insatiable curiosity. "





	Her Lover

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the imitable MiaCooper for her honesty, friendship and dedication to eliminating the worst impulses in my writing. Not only did she beta this, but she organised this collection so brava to that all round hero of a woman. 
> 
> Suzanne is my all time favourite Cohen song. So naturally it was completely impossible for me to write this. Go figure.

 

**_And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her_ **  
**_Then she gets you on her wavelength_ **  
**_And she lets the river answer that you've always been her lover_ **

 

“Once upon a time,” you think - isn’t that how every good story begins?

But for you, all your stories begin and end the same way. A journey you didn’t want to go on, with a cause you do not love. 

And pain. So much it becomes indistinguishable from the moments of normality, in your memories. 

You cradled you father’s body to you, the world spinning upside down in a reversal of natural order.

In that moment you swore you would never be a father, that you’d set aside those urges for fear that you’d ever put your son through this. 

And your anger was incredible: it burst out of you in a howl, and echoed through all the choices you made immediately after: resign from your promising but insipid ‘Fleet career, take up arms as a terrorist.

You’ve killed with your bare hands, and sometimes your fingers squeeze together in muscle memory. 

It makes your stomach slosh and your recollections recoil into fonder, less violent recesses. 

Somehow those memories are smaller than the ones which keep you awake at night, and victories much harder to come by.

You thought you’d won over your baser instincts to always go back to what hurt, what needled at your very bones, what brought you pain/pleasure all at once.

And for a brief, shining moment, Seven was everything you should have wanted; pretty without edges, kind and innocent, deliberately compassionate, willing for you to lead, keen to please and make you selflessly happy.

Seven was - is - all of that, and yet she still falls short.

And she. Her. Your former captain. Your former friend.

Your former _what_?

She is everything you want to loathe. Colossal energy hemmed into a pristine uniform - tonight a scarlet evening gown - all the things that repulse you.

And draw you in too.

You’ve always had a weakness for women in power, and it was – is – easy to hand your own over to her and have her shred it apart with her pale little hands.

Do you despise her?

No.

Yes.

No.

Do you love her?

You can’t decide.

Seven is statuesque beside you and holds her body rigid, like a column of marble. Her power is different, it isn’t like Kathryn’s (though it tries to be). She is uncomfortable, and you lean towards her and murmur soothing but uncompassionate comfort into the shell of her ear. Both of you look at the captain, resplendent in the middle of the dance floor, in the arms of an Admiral you do not know and do not like.

Does the way Owen Paris’ eyes glide over her, fatherly, possessively, condescendingly, make your gut stir with envy?

Yes.

Julia Paris holds onto her husband’s arm like he is smoke – fingers gripping his forearm with a might you didn’t think she possessed. She’s a wisp of a woman, and Tom’s blue eyes look out of place in her sour and envious face.

You think you understand it, though you never did ask.  Your Captain wouldn’t have stood for such an intimate interrogation.

There is so much about her you don’t know, and too much you’ve fabricated to fill the gaps in your own insatiable curiosity.

So much she hinted at but never confessed.

And so much she redacted, edited, re-phrased.

Do you know her? Or is it just her call, just her power, that you know like you know the ancestral prayers or the constellations of your home planet?

Her eyes brush over you as she spins in the Admiral’s arms. Her smile glistens with self-satisfaction, with the success of having bluffed her way through the inquiry.

With having got everything she wanted.

You take another whiskey, and you let Seven’s hand go.

You turn to walk away, from much more than just this charade; the glistening badges, the victorious banners, the smiles that feel forced, the champagne that is flowing at the cost of a quadrant ravished by a war you were supposed to fight.

You turn to leave, shedding any responsibility you thought you had to a love you can’t be certain truly existed.

You are at the top of the stairs, breathing in the humid air of a San Francisco night. Freedom feels imminent, if you can just –

“Chakotay…”

If velvet, coffee, pain, power had a sound it would be the way she says your name; resting, pulled over the first syllable, curling around the second, dying beautifully on the third.

It cuts through everything you can hear, focuses in on your cock, your skin, the tips of your fingers, your mind, your heart.

Your deeply misplaced and ultimately fatal loyalty.

Your endless love.

Of course, you love her. Hasn’t that always been your biggest fault?

“Where are you going?”

You turn to her, and you pretend to yourself that there is hope in her eyes, that there is innocence in the way her teeth pull at her bottom lip.

You look at her, really look at her.

But it feels out of focus – as if she has been spun through a kaleidoscope of all the faults you didn’t want her to have, and so she is coloured and shaped and fractured by them.

And maybe she is even more beautiful for it.

“Nowhere –”

“You don’t need to lie to me,” she takes a step towards you, and you instinctively move to step back.

You resist the urge.

You do need to lie, you need to lie to protect the last fragments of the heart she has torn through and left in her inescapable wake.

“I’m not –”

“Don’t go,” she whispers, urgent, and curls her fingers into yours. “I have so much to –”

But she stops herself, and instead she rocks onto her toes and presses her hands against your chest and her lips against your own.

And you know you won’t – you can’t – go anywhere, not even if you tried.

Not even if you wanted to.

Because you _do_ want to.

Everything recedes in this moment, in this moment where she curls her fingers into your hair and reminds you of how she tastes.

It hasn’t changed.

Nothing endures, as equally as nothing will ever change.

 

And yet here you are, and here you will remain until she orders you to go.

“Happily ever after…,” the old ending of every odyssey goes.

You don’t think so. That is far too easy.

But you won’t be the one to point out that _this_ story will not end that way.

**_And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind_ **

**_And you know that she will trust you_ **

**_For you've touched her perfect body with your mind_ **


End file.
